Britain's intelligence chiefs are to be grilled on whether their agencies knowingly received information obtained from terror suspects through torture by the CIA.

The heads of MI6, MI5 and GCHQ will be questioned by Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee over claims that their officers knew, or should have known, that information from captives came after they were physically or mentally abused.

The ISC is to examine a damning Senate intelligence committee report into the CIA’s use of torture, before taking evidence from British spy chiefs after the general election next year.

The UN and human rights groups today called for the prosecution of US officials accused of brutalising scores of terror suspects, including more than 20 who had been wrongly detained.

Tactics used in secret “black site” detention centres included confinement to small boxes, weeks of sleep deprivation, simulated drowning known as “waterboarding”, slapping and slamming, and threats to kill, harm or sexually abuse captives’ families.

The CIA was also accused of lying to the White House about its interrogation methods — which were used against senior al Qaeda operatives — and the report challenged the agency’s claims that information obtained had helped to prevent terrorist attacks, including against Heathrow and Canary Wharf. Senior Whitehall insiders denied that the UK had leant on the Senate committee to exclude any references to Britain in its report, which was significantly redacted.

But former shadow home secretary David Davis accused the British Government of having previously “turned a blind eye” to torture. “There is now little doubt that the Government operated a secret policy of complicity in torture in the years after 9/11,” he said on the ConservativeHome website.

Sir Malcolm Rifkind, chairman of the ISC, said Mr Davis’s claim was “unreasonable” given the degree of supporting evidence that he had provided.

However, Sir Malcolm added: “There is an important issue that needs to be addressed. It’s not whether the British Government or British agencies were carrying out torture. It’s whether the intelligence agencies benefited from information or accepted information that they either knew or ought to have known had been obtained through improper means.”

David Cameron has denounced the use of torture and said that “after 9/11 there were things that happened that were wrong”.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “The UK Government stands firmly against torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. We do not do it, we do not condone it, and we do not ask others to do it on our behalf.”

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The CIA admitted that “mistakes” had been made but insisted its work saved many people from being killed by terrorists.

The ISC took over an investigation into the alleged abuse of detainees after an inquiry by retired judge Sir Peter Gibson was halted when police started to investigate the claims.

The committee’s inquiry has already examined thousands of documents passed to the Gibson inquiry or subsequently requested from the agencies.

Publishing an interim report last year, Sir Peter said it did appear from documents that the UK may have been “inappropriately” involved in some renditions.

He found no evidence that MI6 or MI5 officers were directly involved in the torture or rendition of suspects but said that further investigation was needed into evidence of complicity.

Veteran Labour MP Jack Straw, who was Foreign Secretary from 2001-06, has said that he was “never in any way complicit” in the unlawful rendition or detention of individuals.

Agency thinks it knows more than its political master

Commentary by Robert Fox, Defence Editor

Once again we have been left with the image of a CIA running out of control, of an intelligence agency that thinks it knows more and should do more than its political master in the White House.

The Senate Intelligence Committee states that the Central Intelligence Agency indulged in torture, didn’t inform the president or principal allies like Britain of the extent of what it was up to, and its violent practices provided little valuable information.

Like the Church Committee reports of the 1970s, we get the notion of a state operating within the state, with sociopathic tendencies and, according to the New York Times main article today, indulged in needless cruelty. Victims were tortured, prisoners were beaten; at least one froze to death.

Much of this is disputed by those in charge at the time. Republican Senator Oren Hatch of Oregon has said the report is partisan and should never have been published. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA, writes today that “the CIA’s methods made America and its allies safer.”

The problem is moral and practical. The practices are against the UN convention on torture. It is hard for Mr Hayden to prove that testimony given after more than 48 hours of torture is of value.

Britain’s involvement has been cut out. But successive UK governments must have known and there is evidence to merit an enquiry into Britain’s role.

The arguments from this report are likely to run — and they should. But Mr Hatch and Mr Hayden, and supporters of Vice President Dick Cheney, godfather of the CIA programmes, must be aware this knocks a hole in America’s belief in its exceptionalism.